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WPCNR THE LETTER TICKER. From the Gedney Association. April 30, 2021:

April 30, 2021

Members of the Common Council
City of White Plains
255 Main Street
White Plains, New York 10601

Re: 701 Westchester Avenue Rezoning

Dear Members of the Common Council,

At a meeting held in late March the Board of the Gedney Association unanimously voted to firmly oppose the proposed rezoning at 701 Westchester Avenue to permit a 360 unit apartment complex.  The Board of The Gedney Association believes that such apartment use should be restricted to the Downtown area, especially given its current weakened condition. 

We strongly agree with the Old Oaks Association, The North Street Civic Association, the Rosedale Residential Association and our neighbors in Havilands Manor in insisting that this rezoning be rejected.

When these office parks were proposed years ago the surrounding residential neighborhoods were promised that they would be low-rise and generally operate Monday through Friday between 9AM to 5PM and not operate on weekends.  Until the Common Council modified the Comprehensive Plan in recent years the Plan clearly stated that apartment buildings should not be permitted in the outlying parts of the City.  Unlike the office buildings whose tenants come from all over the New York metro area and thus primarily use Westchester Avenue to access I-287, I-684 and the Hutchinson River Parkway the residents of the proposed apartment complex will more frequently utilize local streets such as Bryant Avenue and North Street to access local stores and other services.

This proposal together with 1133 Westchester Avenue would result in approximately 700 new housing units with an estimated additional population of at least 1,200 to 1,400 people.  As you are aware, the south end of the City has one, small firehouse serving the entire area.  Has the City done even the most basic analysis of what these new units plus the thousands of proposed units Downtown would mean in terms of additional costs to City services?

Permitting a rezoning here would ignore the goals of the Comprehensive Plan, which consistently encourages that such development occur downtown. “Residential development in and adjacent to the downtown, unlike the lower density housing in the Close In and Outer Area neighborhoods, should be viewed as part of a coherent economic development strategy”.  This goal is consistent with a letter from the Westchester County Planning Department which also recommended that multi-family buildings be situated Downtown.  We urge the Common Council to adhere to the County recommendation and the residential neighborhoods in the south end of the City and reject this proposal.

Very Truly Yours,

Board of Directors
The Gedney Association

WPCNR WESTCHESTER LAW JOURNAL. From the Press Office of the Westchester County District Attorney. April 30, 2021:

Westchester District Attorney Miriam E. Rocah today publicly called on the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate the Mount Vernon Police Department (MVPD) for pervasive and persistent alleged civil rights violations including unlawful strip searches, excessive use of force, and other misconduct.

“The Westchester District Attorney’s Office is engaged in ongoing criminal investigations of certain individual MVPD police officers,” DA Rocah said. “In the course of those investigations, based largely on publicly available information, we have found disturbing allegations of patterns of inappropriate and potentially unlawful conduct by several former and current members of the MVPD. We have provided information that we gathered in this respect to DOJ.”

“While our criminal investigations of individual officers continue, we are requesting that DOJ scrutinize the MVPD’s operations, training and policies to determine whether the MVPD is systematically violating peoples’ civil rights and, if so, to take action to address these matters,” DA Rocah added.

“Since taking office in January, 2020 my mandate has been transformation and accountability across city agencies including the police department. We are working hard to dismantle systemic issues and reform policing to ensure that our community is a safe place for all,” said Mount Vernon Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard. “Our administration referred multiple cases to the District Attorney for review and welcome DA Rocah’s request that DOJ add its resources to identify and address these issues for the benefit of our community.”

DA Rocah said that a DOJ investigation would focus on broader issues of civil rather than criminal law, which do not typically fall under the purview of the DA’s Office. She emphasized that the DA’s Office continues to work with the MVPD to investigate and prosecute crimes in Mount Vernon, and said this ongoing collaboration would continue without disruption during a DOJ investigation.

In March, DA Rocah wrote to MVPD Commissioner of Public Safety Glenn Scott regarding what appeared to be a routine practice of strip searches and body cavity searches of suspects. “My concern arises not from a single, isolated complaint, but from a number of them from 2012-20, making similar allegations of certain police officers illegally or inappropriately conducting these highly invasive searches without the high legal and/or factual predicate thresholds having been satisfied,” DA Rocah stated in the letter.

Since taking office in January, DA Rocah has greatly increased the focus of the Westchester DA’s Office on all forms of public corruption, including police misconduct. “All Westchester residents need to have confidence that they will be treated fairly and equitably. Public trust in our criminal justice system is critical to public safety and we must strengthen that confidence through any tools available to us.”